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Architect arrested due to use of word "front" acquitted of terror charges

2017-12-26

An architect arrested over alleged membership in a far-left radical organisation for using the word “front” (cephe) in a phone conversation has been acquitted, online alternative news site Diken said.

Assistant Professor Hatice Senem Doyduk, who was overseeing an alternative urban transformation project in Istanbul’s Küçük Armutlu neighbourhood in 2014, was arrested on Sept. 22, 2016, on the basis her use of the word in a phone conversation was evidence she was a member of the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party/Front (DHKP-C), a Turkish Marxist–Leninist party classified as a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States, and the European Union.

The Sarıyer district branch of the Pir Sultan Abdal Cultural Association, an Alevi organisation, set up the “Küçük Armutlu neighbourhood national architectural idea project competition” in 2014, in order to create an alternative outlet for urban transformation, it reported.

Doyduk requested that a photograph on the front - in a reference to the facade - of the building, depicting a person with a weapon in their hand, be removed from the competition exhibition.

Doyduk was arrested after police decided the word “front” used by the academic was a reference to the DHKP-C. Doyduk was released pending trial on Sept. 28 of last year. She was re-arrested the following month, on Oct. 5 in Sakarya, following objections from the prosecution.

Doyduk was acquitted of the crimes of attempting to overthrow the government and membership in an armed terrorist group.